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Episode 13 of the June Murders
DCI Bale knew he needed to work on his media communication skills. Basically, he mistrusted the press; an attitude experience had reinforced. But the result was that he almost always avoided talking to the media, and was happy to delegate the task to the Met’s PR people.
June Sommers had been a rising star and her very public and dramatic murder generated a lot of media coverage. This ranged from the broadsheets — the Times, and the Guardian for instance — which put the killing on their front page the day after, but then confined their coverage to opinion pieces about the risks faced by celebrities — to the tabloids — the Sun, Mirror and Mail — which ran the story on their front pages for the week, preferring to tap into larger issues through eye-grabbing speculation.
The murder was said to be a terrorist plot gone wrong with Sommers not the real target. The murder was a glimpse into a new arms race of automated weapons. Bale faced an internal reprimand for not realising that the brusque treatment of the cameramen at the premiere damaged the Met’s already fragile relations with the media. He managed to keep Collins out of this. Soon, coverage turned more hostile with the police being presented as uncaring or incompetent in the high-profile murder of a famous woman. Then, the speed with which reporters learned how Sommers had…
